My thoughts about spying.

I've been doing some thinking about the current DA spy system, and this is what I think.

First:
I don't like being required to disable tiles to place my agents. Having a spy in your empire provides enough insentive to have them removed, let alone what disabling tiles does inaddition to that. This also prevents you from spying on, and stealing techs from one of your "allies" without disabling some of their tiles in the process. What I'm suggesting is allowing you to have the "option" to place spies in other empires instead of on tiles.

Second:
Shouldn't you be able to do more with your spies than merely gathering intel, stealing techs, and disabling tiles? For example:
-Sow discontent, reduces the morale on the given planet.
-Cultural warfare, increases your cultural influence on the given planet, possibly to the point that they begin to flip.
-Insurrection Tactics, reduces loyalty on the planet by encouraging the locals to actively oppose their government.
-etc.

Third:
Secret police. You heard me. Use your agents to support your empire. Examples include:
-Improve Loyalty, silence those annoying opposition leaders by making "disappear". I'm thinking free cable. They'll be too busy watching TV to cause me any trouble. If they turn into some sort of freakish Zombies because of it, even better.
-Cultural Growth, make the planet the site of many rock concerts, or movie filmings.
-Boost morale, free icecream!
-etc.
5,337 views 5 replies
Reply #1 Top
How about this for the first issue: A spy placed in a colony center (currently disallowed) does not shut down production, but does allow information gathering. Simple, and it makes sense. This might also be a mechanism for your second point - spies in the capital have more 'reach' than a spy in a factory.

Maybe this could be more tile specific - spies in a research center have a chance to steal technology, spies in a starport learn about ship designs, spies in an embassy learn about foreign relations, etc...
Reply #2 Top
I like the spies in the capital gather information- and give them a bonus to it ahead of normal spies. I do not want to disable my good ally's tiles.

I'll expand on the special abilities of spies

Spies in a resarch center can steal tech that has just been discovered if lucky, or some progress towards the tech they are currently researching.
Spies in a starport can sabotage a ship design, or steal weapons/defense/sensor/life support/engine tech
Spies in an embassy can lower relations between that race and other races, and if lucky incite a war
Spies in a market tile can siphon off BCs, if lucky crash the opponent's economy.
Spies in an entertainment center can cause a planet's morale to lower, and if lucky revolt
Spies in a capital don't get any bonuses since they're screwing up everything already.
Reply #3 Top
Sounds really interesting to give the spies some tool functions…
Reply #4 Top
Are there any limitations to spies?

I.e. can allies place spies on eachothers soil? I would think they could'nt, especially in the case here, since they actually sabotage production.

TIP
Reply #5 Top
For the record, the system I proposed is supposed to be simple, yet effective.

Reply #2
...
Spies in a starport can sabotage a ship design, or steal weapons/defense/sensor/life support/engine tech
...


Coding spies to do something like that would make things complicated real fast. Save that suggestion for another time.